Unions to resist pay cuts at Mater Private

TRADE UNIONS have said they will resist vigorously plans by the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin to implement pay cuts of 5 – 7.5 per cent for staff.

Up to 70 staff held a protest outside the hospital yesterday against the proposed cuts. Unions have served strike notice to come into effect from Monday, February 1st.

Siptu health sector organiser Paul Bell said industrial action would proceed if management at the hospital was not willing to engage in “meaningful discussions”.

The chief executive of the Mater Private, Fergus Clancy, said he was disappointed the trade unions had decided to stage a protest yesterday, given that it had been served with notice of a strike to commence on Monday week.

He said the focus of the hospital was on the continuation of patient care in the event of the dispute going ahead.

The hospital has maintained that in addition to the recession, it has also had to deal with cutbacks in the VHI’s budget, the National Treatment Purchase Fund’s budget as well as reductions in public health spending in both the Republic and Northern Ireland.

It has said that the proposed pay cuts were “in the best interests of all our people and the goal is to safeguard as many jobs as possible”.

Siptu general secretary Joe O’Flynn told staff at the protest yesterday that it would not permit a profitable employer such as the Mater Private to unilaterally reduce the wages of its staff.

The general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Liam Doran said that management at the hospital had acted “illegally” in imposing wage cuts on its staff without consultation with the workers’ unions”.

He said the pay cuts would be vigorously resisted.

Meanwhile, the INMO said yesterday that staff at another Dublin private hospital, Mount Carmel, were to challenge the introduction of similar pay cuts under the Payments of Wages legislation rather than through industrial action.

A spokeswoman said that the issue would be heard by a rights commissioner.